A collegue asked me to recommend a photo printer yesterday. I haven't paid any attention to the market since I bought my A3+ printer 5 years ago so I went and had a look today.

Wow. The market has completely changed. There are now only all-in-one types for "normal" size printing (up to A4 = letter size). I looked at Epson and they still do a Stylus Photo multifunction scanner/printer - if it's good at printing it should also be good at scanning photos.

Are you talking about scanning photos or negatives? Photos are easy but negatives are quite difficult. You need a scanner cover with a light in it to pass through the negative, a special infrared device to see dust in the image. I can't see this mentioned in today's specifications. I guess that nobody wants to scan negatives any more (which I can understand)